


The Evolution of Love

by RJW



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Awkwardness, Coming Out, Crushes, Drama & Romance, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, One Shot, Romance, Teenage Drama, Tyrus is Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-09 01:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17397764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RJW/pseuds/RJW
Summary: It all starts with a muffin. A muffin you’re going to miss out on, because you don’t know how to stand up for yourself in the school cafeteria and it’s just incredibly annoying that they don’t bake enough of them for the number of students that’s craving them. Suddenlyhe’s there, entering your life like a strike of lightning. He gives you that little push to get that last muffin, and he’s there for you, saying that he’s with you. You may not know it now, but you’re going to be head over heels with this boy. It’s going to be far more than a simple crush, but at the moment, you’re not realizing this yet.





	The Evolution of Love

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought I had to try a different style of writing, and I wrote this in one go... To be honest, I'm pretty pleased with it :-). I hope you enjoy it!

It all starts with a muffin. A muffin you’re going to miss out on, because you don’t know how to stand up for yourself in the school cafeteria and it’s just incredibly annoying that they don’t bake enough of them for the number of students that’s craving them. Suddenly _he_ ’s there, entering your life like a strike of lightning. He gives you that little push to get that last muffin, and he’s there for you, saying that he’s with you. You may not know it now, but you’re going to be head over heels with this boy. It’s going to be far more than a simple crush, but at the moment, you’re not realizing this yet.

People say he’s mean. But he really isn’t. He’s sweet, and he himself has stuff, things that he’s insecure about. You can relate to that. He comes to the swings and he doesn’t make fun of your ridiculous childish song. Instead he’s supportive and opens up a bit. He’s starting to push your limits and lets you swing higher. You’re scared but it’s also so much fun. It’s a new feeling really. He comes up with a nickname, and that makes you feel a little bit special. He even comes to your party, although you don’t even really know each other that well.

At the basketball game, you see him standing alone, at the sideline, instead of playing along with the team. You’re worried, because he looks so lonely and lost, and he must be in need of a friend, so you let your instinct take over. He tries to push you away, putting on a mask of some scary, mean guy. A bully. But you know already that’s not who he really is. Walking away from him would be just too easy. So you follow him and let him know that you can be a friend, if he wants you to be that. He has no one to talk to in his life; _really_ talk to that is, about feelings and stuff. About how he’s not allowed to play because he’s failing math, about that he might have a broken brain. So you decide that you want to be that person in his life. You see him changing in that moment, in his body language; in the look he’s giving you. You know he’s grateful, although he doesn’t say it. He shares his cheese puffs with you, and that says more than words.

Your best friend doesn’t approve of your newly gained friendship. But she doesn’t know him really. She only sees the outer shell, not the sweet inside. He’s just not used to showing people that side of him. Being mean and confident is easy, showing your insecurities and your vulnerability is not. She just has to realize that, because you don’t want to choose. You don’t want to lose the close friendship with her, but the thought of losing _him_ makes you almost feel nauseated. And that’s a bit confusing, because you feel something is changing. Much to your relief he’s willing to apologize to her, for being mean when she didn’t deserve that. It makes you feel warm because it’s like he’s doing that just for you, so he can keep spending time with you. And you really want that. He’s so supportive. He even brings you to his work at the children’s gym to teach you how to do a somersault. And when you finally succeed, he’s even more excited than you.

Together you set up an ambush, to get your best friend to play a one-on-one game with him, to prove they can play together and have fun. She thinks it’s a bit pathetic, but she goes along with the plan anyway. You really try to keep score, but you keep being distracted by him. It’s at that moment you realize he’s beautiful. He just looks so good in his outfit, running around the field. Sometimes when he jumps to throw the ball, a bit of his belly his showing and it’s ridiculous, but it makes your head heat up. You can only look at him with a lovesick expression and you’re confused, and also a bit annoyed at yourself. Are you really developing a crush on a heterosexual boy again? That’s going to be so tiring and frustrating again. But then you scold yourself for making presumptions. Based on appearance you cannot jump to conclusions about someone’s feelings. So you treasure a little spark of hope burning inside of you that maybe, just maybe, mister heterosexual-sporty-scary-basketball-captain has some feelings to return to you.

It’s a couple of minutes later, that this spark of hope is fueled by him. When you’re outside, he does the most adorable apology-rap to your best friend. He does it for her in the first place, of course. But you can’t ignore the thought that he made that huge effort, just to let her approve of your friendship with him. And that can only be because he really, really wants to be with you. So your heart flutters in your chest and there’s absolutely no denying, you have a crush, crush, crush on this tall dirty-blond-haired boy. When he walks away from you, he suddenly looks back over his shoulder. And there’s no mistaking, he looks right into your eyes, and you’re sure your heart is going to explode.

You start looking for signs. Signs that will tell you more about his feelings for you. Because for some reason, in this world it’s absolutely weird to just walk up to someone and ask about their feelings for you. Imagine that, it would solve so many problems and avoid awkward moments. But now and here, you study his body language, his facial expressions, his conversations with you, and you try to create an image of his feelings. You drive yourself mad in the process, of course. You overthink everything, and in the end you’re really not sure how to interpret everything he does or says. When you go to the girl’s team basketball practice together, he sits far too close to you, as if he has absolutely no notion of personal space. You can feel his body heat radiating from him, and it’s distracting but also very nice. But why is he sitting that close? Doesn’t he notice? Doesn’t he care? Is it on purpose?

He fucks up. He takes you to meet his friends, and when he mentions he talks about you with them, you can feel the butterflies in your body because you can’t even imagine what’s interesting about you he can talk about. But apparently, that’s what he does. You have a great time until one of his friends shows a gun. The friend thinks it’s fun to play with it but boy, he does show it to the wrong person. He knows you don’t approve, he knows it’s just not right, and yet he took you with him. You decide you have to get away as quickly as possible. You plead to him he has to leave with you. He looks devastated and heart broken, but he doesn’t follow you. You feel like shit, tears welling up in your eyes, when you leave without him. You spill your guts out to your best friends, and they’re really not that supportive, more in a state of I-told-you-so. And that’s not really helping you at all.

Your friends keep him away from you, and keep you away from him. He tries to call several times, and each time you consider answering it, but they say you should block him on your phone. You really don’t want to do that. You’re in too deep. You want to hear his side of the story. And when you spot him in the cafeteria, your heart breaks because he’s sitting all alone. He’s not with his friends, and he looks so sad and beautiful. Your friends have to physically block you from walking up to him and hearing him out. It pains you to see him like this. You tend to see the good in people. Well, especially in him. It must be worth hearing his side of the story, but you’re afraid of losing your friends. You don’t know how to solve this, and you know there’s only one place for you to clear your mind.

It’s the first time you know for sure he has at least some sort of love for you. Maybe just friendly, you don’t know, but it’s unmistakably there. He finds you at the swings. He says he’s been stopping by every day in the hope of meeting you there. Your heart skips a beat. Your brain is melting when he says he thinks you’re something good in his life. Because you really want to be that. But he then says he wants to apologize, only to not apologize. And dammit, that’s annoying, because you’ve been through a lot and it would mean so much to you to hear those words. So you just speak your mind and he almost gets angry. He thinks you’re annoying, but this time, he’s not getting away with it, so you decide you’re up for the argument telling him that he can be intimidating and oblivious. Oblivious because he just doesn’t see what he does to you, what impact he has on your life, on how his bad decisions make you feel. And that’s the moment he surprises you the most. When his facial expressions suddenly turn into the most caring look he has ever given you, he tells you in all sincerity that you’re the only one he can talk to like this. It’s the moment you want to hug him, maybe more, but you feel that’s too early. So you contain yourself and just smile back.

The love you feel radiating from him, although you’re not sure how to categorize it, is growing when he’s making amends with your other friend, about arguments that should be buried a long time ago anyway. He’s trying to make sure nothing stands in the way of you and him being together. He’s sitting with you at lunch breaks, smiling at you, and starting on a Friday, he buys you a chocolate chip muffin once in a while because he “just wants to”. It’s impossible to hide your feelings from your friends, and they roll their eyes when you splutter something incomprehensible when they just bluntly ask about your feelings from him. It’s really hard to refrain your body from revealing your crush when he calls your outfit cute one day, in front of everyone, as if he’s saying nothing out of the ordinary. Your friends look at you with wide eyes, but he just bites into his chicken sandwich and changes the subject to some basketball game that’s coming up.

One day, when the weather promised to be lovely in the morning, but in reality it really turned out to be much colder than you anticipated, he gives you his hoody and makes you put it on, because you’re shivering from the cold and he’s looking worried. He asks you to come to his basketball practice that afternoon, and you feel really self-conscious, because everyone knows that attending the practice, and wearing a player’s clothes doing that, is normally only reserved for the player’s girlfriends. You decide to be brave and do it anyway, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that there are some whispers and glares directed at you in the gym. He doesn’t seem to be fazed at all about it, and even comes up to you hugging you and thanking you for coming. You don’t know where to look, or how to slow your heartbeat down, but it gives you the strength not to care too much of what other people think of you.

When he invites you to a sleepover, you feel like an idiot for the way you’re responding. Because really, you’re just a blushing blubbering mess when he tells you he wants it to be “just you and me”. It’s hard to get some sleep the following nights, because of course, you’re overthinking it as always, in anticipation of the sleepover. On Saturday, you knock on his door, holding a backpack with your sleeping back and pajama’s. He’s all smiles and again, you think you will get a heart attack on the spot, because he’s suddenly wearing glasses and his hair is all fluffy without the gel and it makes him look so, so cute. When you ask him about the glasses he reveals he normally wears contacts, and he suddenly becomes a bit shy when, in a courageous moment, you tell him the glasses look cute on him. You end up sitting on his bed together, watching some romantic, French, cult movie on his laptop. He’s sitting crossed leg, and you have to sit far too close to him to watch the movie properly. He doesn’t seem to mind at all you’re that close. In fact, the moment you try to scoot away from him because your back is beginning to ache from the awkward posture you’re in, he asks where you’re going and is swinging an arm around you, pulling you close again.

As you wake up, the light of the sun streaming through the window, you need a minute to realize where you are at the moment. In a moment of pure distress, you notice your completely untouched backpack, and you realize that not only you’re in his bed with him below his duvet, but also, you’re not wearing your pajamas, but only your t-shirt and boxers. What’s withholding a panic from rising is the fact that there’s an arm around you holding you tight, and there is a sound of snoring behind your head, very close to you. You remember a playful argument from yesterday night, about how he definitely wasn’t going to let you sleep on the floor, holding up his duvet, inviting you in. And you’re sure you didn’t drink any alcohol, but you decided to take the invitation, and just like him, sleep in a shirt and boxers. Now you’re all confused because certainly, this is not what regular friends would do. There’s undeniably some love floating around in this room, at this moment. But what does that make you two? Surely, you have to talk about this. Your mind stops racing when you hear him whispering that you make too much noise thinking that loud, and you feel him pressing a kiss to the back of your head. So you decide to just savor the moment, and save the confusion for later.

He makes you breakfast, and although you feel very content, and can imagine yourself doing this for the rest of your life, there’s a tiny bit of frustration growing in your mind about all the words that are not spoken. He’s making small talk, and joking about something he saw on tumblr. He doesn’t ask you what you want to eat or drink, he just seems to know and is serving you exactly the right things, as if you’ve been together for a long time already. You feel like you have skipped an entire part of a normal relationship development when he asks you if he can make you a coffee, adding a “babe” to the sentence. Dumbfounded you can only nod your head, look at him with wide eyes, and blush like mad. Later, when you say goodbye to each other on his doorstep, there’s an awkward moment when you both don’t seem to find the right way how to do that properly. In the end, it’s a hug, and he thanks you for coming over, telling you he enjoyed every minute of it and that you have to repeat this soon. In the car, your mother asks you if you had fun and you hear yourself say yes, although that word absolutely not covers the events in any way.

At school, he’s waiting for you by the lockers. He’s lighting up when he spots you walking to him. He insists on walking you to class, and while he’s doing that, you feel your hands brushing because he’s walking too close to you. It’s sweet, it’s confusing, and it’s annoying, because it makes your mind race during classes. You realize that you’re completely in love with this boy, but you don’t know how he feels exactly. Sure, it’s pretty obvious he likes you in a way, but now what? Does he want to be boyfriends? Does he want to be out? Is it a secret? Is this just an experiment? Your friends are bombarding you with questions during lunch break, and although they don’t believe it, you really don’t have the answers. You notice when all of a sudden they all become very quiet, staring at something behind you, and you’re startled to death when out of nowhere you feel him kissing your cheek and lowering himself in the seat next to you. You squeak very undignifiedly, and tip over your orange juice spilling it all over the table. Not knowing how to handle all the embarrassment and confusion you decide to just run for it, and flee the situation.

Sitting in a swing, you’re really not sure what made you so embarrassed. It isn’t him kissing you. That was nice actually. It isn’t the fact you aren’t out to the whole school, your friends know and you don’t give a damn about how other people think of it. It isn’t the fact that you reacted so clumsy. Everybody knows you are clumsy, and if you have to run away from every situation where you drop something, or trip over something, well, there would be an awful lot of running away. Is it because you’re embarrassed about being embarrassed? That’s some confusing shit. It would certainly help if _he_ would talk about what he wants, but you’re not sure if he wants to talk to you after that scene in the cafeteria. He probably thinks you don’t want to have anything to do with him. You can only sigh at the moment, and wait until the dust settles. You notice some messages on your phone from your friends asking where you are. One of them urges you to go speak to him, because apparently, he looked devastated when you ran away.

It takes three days before you will see him again, and your heart breaks into a thousand pieces when you do. He has avoided you all this time, and really, you yourself didn’t really try to find him, still uncertain what to say. But when you see him in front of the school, his hands on some random girl’s waist, laughing at her and radiating his old air of a confident-and-scary-basketball-jock, something inside you snaps. When they ask you about it later, you really can’t remember clearly what it was you exactly said, or yelled. But it was nasty, it was very public, very humiliating, and it contained words that are not to be repeated. You cried angry tears in front of him, and he didn’t succeed in holding his walls up either. He even pushed the girl away when she tried to get involved and say something to you. It all ends with you running away from him again, and him calling for you and trying to come after you, only to be held back by your friends.

That evening, you lie on your bed, staring at your ceiling, ignoring all the beeps and buzzes coming from your phone. In your heart, you know he’s sorry for hurting you. You just know him too well. You know he’s sorry for pushing you. You know he’s probably devastated about you being mad at him. You know he’s not used to talk about his feelings. You know he knows he handled it poorly. And probably, he knows that you know that he knows that. It’s driving you crazy thinking about it. And now you feel bad about it. When your mother calls from downstairs for you to come down, you can only barely find the energy to do so. You find her in the kitchen, where she’s showing you the muffins she made for you to cheer you up. With tears in your eyes, you hug your mother, put the muffins in a tupperware box, and excuse yourself for having to go somewhere. You step outside into the cold evening air, hugging the box with muffins to your chest, determined to make your own luck.

When he opens the door, he looks terrible, with red-rimmed eyes, and his hair a complete mess. His jaw drops the moment he sees you, and both you and him are not capable of talking. With shaking hands, you take the lid of the box, and show him the muffins, offering them to him. His eyes are filled with disbelief and you can clearly see tears are starting to form. First, he carefully takes the box with muffins from your hands, and he puts them down on the side table. He then takes a step forward until he stands close to you and looks you in the eyes. He stands so close you can feel his breathing on your face. Without using words, you see him asking permission for his next step. You take both his hands in yours, and you nod encouragingly. Very slowly, as if he’s afraid of scaring you of, he leans in stopping only a couple of millimeters from your mouth. You’re aware this is the moment you’re going to take the plunge, and everything is going to change. You are the one closing the gap, and melting your lips together. His lips are soft and taste a bit salty from the tears that have been running down. You then place your right hand on his face, and that’s the moment he relaxes and explodes at the same time. There has been a lid on his real feeling for so long, and they all burst out together. You feel his arms around you exploring your back, and holding you tight, you feel his mouth eager to deepen the kiss. He’s throwing himself at you with everything he’s got, and he’s whispering _I’m sorry_ ’s and _I love you_ ’s in your ear. You know there has to be a lot of talking to come, but for the moment you settle on one _I love you too_ whispered back to him. And you see him smiling from behind his tears, turning into the happiest man alive, and you know that is has been worth it all the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, what do you think? Let me know in the comments!  
> #lovewins


End file.
